Couplet [Raiha]

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Sama'el nodded, watching and listening both to Raiha and the wee hen on his arm. He tensed a little when Raiha moved the little bird so close to tender nipples, but he forced himself to relax and the bird did too, though her mother was not at all pleased. He was rather sure Kefi would never like him, though he wasn't sure how that worked, so he asked. "How long are their memories?" he asked. "I mean, will Kefi one day not want to kill me, or will she always remember me as the strange man who held her chick?" He tried to take his cues from Raiha. The little hen seemed more comfortable like this, which eased some of his own tension, and she seemed to like his tentative scratching, but now he had empathy for Raiha's own discomfiture when he was able to charm her horse within a minute of meeting her and now he was the one out of his element. They were both animal people, and he would probably make a good falconer, but he was not the natural that she was. He accepted this without shame. The gods made them all in different shapes, sizes, and qualities. "And you're right," he said. "When I want dogs, I'll get dogs. Dogs make more sense, so I think they'll be easier. Best learn raptors first." He paused, glancing once more at the wee hen, then back to Raiha. "How will we know if she'll take to me or if there's some... conflict between our spirits?" He smiled quietly. There were some people who just could not get a horse to work for them, or sometimes just a specific horse. There was no knowing why sometimes; it just was. He knew he would be happy with whichever Raiha chose for him, but he was curious to know as much as he could know, the better to be a good partner to this bird, or whichever one chose him.

[Raiha]

“Just relax,” Raiha told him when she saw his tension at the closeness of the little bird. “Just breathe. She is part of you when you hold her, and you are part of her. The hawk is an extension of you, and you are an extension of them. When you tense, when you are angry, when you are hesitant, it influences her. She knows. Just like your horse knows. Birds know. Dogs know. Just breathe.” She could understand his apprehension. That little beak could hurt, and Raiha had plenty of scars from her experiences with birds.

She smiled, though, at him, and more at the angry, fluffed up kestrel. “Kefi will remember you until her dying breath. Don’t think that she won’t. She holds grudges. Your best bet is to raise her baby well, whichever one you choose, and hope that they report that to their mother,” her lips quirked up, going from faint smile to slightly teasing grin. Maybe she was kidding. Maybe she wasn’t. It was hard to tell. But there was more indication than not that she truly did believe it.

“We’ll practice,” Raiha placed the male chick in the empty flight beside his mother’s, listening to him protest at being removed from his comfortable position, but sitting on a perch regardless, watching these going-ons as the Akontak closed the door and easily covered the length of the mews to close that door as well. “You can try flying them in here, and see what she makes of them and you.” The goshawks in their separate flights, along with the other birds in there were paying attention as well. They apparently recognized the word ‘flying’ as an activity they looked forward to. She opened the pouch on her belt, withdrawing the well-used moleskin lure he had seen the last time he was here along with some scraps of meat that was, to smell it, fresh. She clucked at the tiny hen. “Here,” she gently removed the little chick from his grasp in an easy motion, thumb against the belly to urge her up, and traded him bird for lure and food. “I’ve started training them to the lure.. so when you flash her that, she’ll come. Try without it, for now. Don’t let her see it yet,” she tucked the little hawk in, much like he had, but without the hesitation. She was used to holding her, after all. “Offer her a piece of that. Not all of it, just a little bit to show her, remind her, that it’s there. Hold it between thumb and forefinger, right down at the joint. That allows you to hold more and only allow them as much as you want them to have.” The little hawk, despite her apprehension, would take as much meat as often as he would let her until Raiha moved back and she was stretching her neck to try to get it.

“Know this,” Raiha said quietly after, allowing him that interaction to show the little bird that this man who had held her had meat, food, on him. “Hawks do not bother with submission or domination. To starve them to try to teach them dependence is cruelty, and will lose you your hawk because they’ll know they can have better chances elsewhere. That’s what the relationship is based on. Mutual respect and the knowledge that we give them an easier life than they can get elsewhere.” She had no patience for anyone that thought they could try to train that way. Very few people truly understood hawks and how to work with them. “In here, we can free-flight because it’s fairly enclosed. I wouldn’t advise doing it yet on the grass, not just yet.” She reached the far end of the hallway, leaving Sama’el standing where he was, and placed the bird on a wooden stand that looked like the letter T, facing the young Drykas, and put her hands down. “Make sure she’s coming to you before you call. Show her what you have... and be ready to receive her.”

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Sama'el did relax. He forcibly relaxed. He understood what she was saying, and articulated much of how he dealt with horses, so that made him feel a bit better. With time and practice, he would relax more, of course. It was easier to know that, though it must have been easier with horses because he started before he could remember. He tried to be a comfortable perch; certainly, she seemed to enjoy the warmth of his body, at least. So he had that much going for him. "Oh, good," he said, glancing at Kefi. He hadn't hurt her chick, so hopefully she wasn't too, too angry at him. But when Raiha had her plan, he ceded the chick for the lure and meat, wondering that the little thing wasn't frightened of all the larger birds around them. So she was a fierce little thing, then. He held the meat in the crook of his fingers, between index and thumb, just as she said. If he did as she instructed, he hoped to leave with all of his fingers intact. She managed to peck as much of the meat as was showing without breaking his skin, which made him smile. Progress! But his face went serious as she warned him about training styles. "I don't know how well-trained she'll have to be to hunt for me," he admitted. "But I hope it doesn't take either of us long to get there, because if I have to catch all her food for her, she might... Well, I suppose she won't forget how to hunt. That's instinctual, right?" When she walked down to the other side of the mews, he waited and then flashed the lure to the young hen. She watched it with rapt fascination, and since he didn't know her name yet, he whistled to her, the same whistle he had used to teach Horse to come to him from across a meadow. When she gathered herself and flew, he tried not to laugh, not knowing if it would startle her. But flight was an amazing thing and he felt a surge of joy at the sight. He was just glad he wore such thick leather bracers. She was little, but her talons were sharp.

[Raiha]

"She'll get there, but it takes time. And she won't ever lose the knowledge of how to hunt. That's in her blood, in her heart. She'll never lose it. How fast she becomes capable depends on -you-." Raiha looked on as the little hen took off. She had had to give her only the slightest of boosts in encouragement to urge her to leave the handler that she was used to, but once the little bird was in the air, she was really in the air. There was motherly pride on the young Akontak’s face, as if she, not Kefi, had laid, hatched, and raised that little chick, as if it was her own daughter. But oh, it did her good to watch them flying. She enjoyed that with chicks, watching and listening as they tested their wings and their ability to move through the air. She knew that the little bird was perfectly capable of coming like that - but it was a matter of getting them to come for someone else.

That was where the food had come in. The little hen was a big chick, a fat chick, because she was one of the first ones hatched, and as such, Kefi and Oanu had a definite preference for feeding her. While they fed each of their chicks, the bigger ones got fed first. It wasn’t cruelty, it was just nature. When resources could be scarce, though her kestrels never had to worry about that, it was instinctual for them to feed the ones that had the greatest chance of survival. That was what they felt and planned for. And it made sense to both of the sister souls. “Make sure you give her food for landing,” Raiha reminded him. She had talked to him about the lure before - but it didn’t hurt to reinforce that idea. The bird saw the lure, food had to be given when they came for it. It was the falconer’s ultimate failsafe.

The little bird went right for the lure, as Raiha knew she would, landing on his gauntlet and immediately trying to grab at where she had received the morsels of food before. The dogs and geese looked on, and from their sheltered flights, so did the larger birds. Kestrels were fearless.That little hen, with all her fearlessness, would happily threaten Uzima or Chuki for meat if the opportunity came, if only because her confidence had her convinced that she was just as big as they were, even if their eyes said differently. "Very good," Raiha smiled. "Very good."

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

When the fierce little thing returned to his hand, he almost crowed for delight, but he was a young man of simple pleasures and an ability to express them with utter candor. He cooed at her as he fed her, the reward for her correct response to the lure, but it was encouraging rather than patronizing, and he wasn't getting his face close enough to her beak to lose eyes or gain scars, not yet. But he seemed entranced by the way she tore at the meat, balancing on one leg as the other claw came up to give better leverage for the tearing and swallowing. He wanted to tie her into the Web right then and there, connect her to him and, through him, to his horses and all. She would be a Drykas kestrel then. But Raiha's curiosity as to Webbing back when they first met made him more circumspect. He didn't know if she had the ability to see such work and, if she did, to copy it somehow. So far as he understood it, she would never Web until she was initiated, and would never be initiated until she was claimed by the horseclans and reciprocated those claims. That was something Kavala could work on, he supposed, since it would take time and Sama'el had a quest to take him away from the Sanctuary. "She's mine, then?" he asked, eyes full of enthusiasm and gratitude just waiting to pour out. "May I name her?"

[Raiha]

Raiha watched him with the little hen, listening to the bird, as she stroked her brother with a thumb before putting him back in the flight, setting him on a perch. Kefi checked her chick over and chirruped at him, ordering him back into the nestbox, rarely taking her eyes off of the Drykas that had her other chick.

She knew she had to let the birds go eventually. She couldn’t keep all of them; it wasn’t practical. If she had any regret, it was that she wouldn’t be able to see the chick often when Sama’el went off with the horses and the Grasslands and wherever else he would go. Her chicks that she sold to the Akalak, at least, she would be able to see in town and if they came to her for training.

So perhaps she was quiet a bit longer than it seemed normal, but she nodded, finally. “Treat her well. But I would not get fancy with a name that you want them to learn, they have no patience for it.” All of her birds had short names. Kefi, Chuki, Oanu, Uzima. Short names that they recognized and responded to. They would work out payment after he named her. She already knew that getting an initiation in Webbing was out, and judging from their previous encounter, he wasn’t going to tell her any more about it. So something else would do.

Raiha had something in mind.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

In her silence, he decided, and when she agreed, he said it aloud: "Hodei." It was an old Pavi word for cloud, and seemed fitting somehow. He gave her a careful nuzzle of the knuckles, eyes wide open for signs of overstimulation. If she was anything like other animals, she would reach a point where she didn't want to be touched, and he understood she would be very pointed in letting him know she had reached that point. He glanced over at Raiha, smile not quite faltering, but stuttering a bit. There was something in her golden eyes, or so he imagined. "What?"